Mmmm, almost all -- at least one of us has passed the bar. But don't hate me, I came out of law school with my personality at least partially undamaged. ;)

So, the question is, is the way you capitalize perl a BFOQ (bona fide occupational qualification)? An argument could be made either way; I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of an unfair hiring suit based on it, but I suspect most could survive such a suit based on other factors of the applicant anyway.

*sigh* I should include the Disclaimer The preceding post is not intended to create any sort of attorney-client relationship or serve as legal advice for any specific situation. As such, this posting is not privileged and may be shared with other parties. If you have a specific legal problem, you should contact an attorney specializing in the subject matter of your issue.

2. SURVEY OF TAGMEMIC DISCOURSE PRINCIPLES

The overiding goal of tagmemic inquiry is a movement
toward an emic understanding of a text or experience. Emicity
and Eticity are thus defined:

ETICITY: surface, distant, reality-as-appearance,
outsider objectivity. Initial etic inquiry typically yields particles whose
wave or field relationships (i.e., situatedness) to other particles are
undetected, indistinct, or ambiguous and which must be identified before
progress can be made toward emic understanding.

2.1 SIX STARTING POINTS

A. Tagmemic Discourse Theory (TDT) searches for
a natural way into a text or experience (i.e., looks for the appropriate
tagmeme , or unit-in-context, that will provide fruitful pathways
of inquiry to discover other features of the phenomenon under investigation)

SUPPOSITION: One needs or must want to
find a way in and brings along a finite set of goals.

Just out of curiousity, I've always wondered whether you lawyer people have to put disclaimers like that whenever you say something that is vaguely like legal advice? Is it just habit from other scenarios? Is it so drilled into your collective heads in law school that you must disclaim everything which you aren't getting paid for and you thus just do it out of habit? Even though its probably not really necessary?

I mean, here we are on a public site, you are using a semi-anonymous account, your comment contains nothing like a directive to the person you are replying to, etc. Is there really a risk that you or some or other lawyer in such a context could have issues if you dont explicitly disclaim your comments? I could understand such a risk in other contexts, but here? Or on a list site like groklaw or whatever?

And I ask this fully understanding that you are not my lawyer and that whatever you say is understood to be under the disclaimer we are discussing. :-)

Well, there's a set of reasons behind it, but it doesn't have to do with working for free. Lawyers are allowed to do that (pro bono work).

It really has to do with establishing the attorney-client relationship. Legally, it's established when the client thinks it is, regardless of what the lawyer thinks. There is a certain standard of reasonableness, but courts will often come down with decisions that appear anything but reasonable. This makes most lawyers leery, particularly since the cases they most often study are the outlandish ones, and most lawyers are not experts in legal ethics (heh, heh). If a lawyer-client relationship is established, it can be difficult for the lawyer to terminate it, even if they're not being paid or the client is difficult(it could involve an appeal to a judge if they're in a current case).

And, yes, you're right, it's probably not necessary here. But lawyers get used to using a LOT of extra words, and typing a disclaimer is a small effort. Also, a small part of it was kind of a joke, particularly the reference to privilege (clearly here it should be obvious that the communication is not private).